Akin House Curriculum Development and Living History Programming

This unit plan is comprised of a variety of inquiry-based lessons that explore the culture and way of life of the Native Americans who occupied New England. After studying the Akin house documents, materials, and narratives, I chose to focus my unit on the land and the people who came before the Akin family so that students will learn the long-view of our rich New England history

Institutions and the Second Amendment

District of Columbia v. Heller ruptured the one institution—the militia—that courts had used for centuries to implement the right to keep and bear arms. If the question was “what arms?,” one looked to the militia to find an answer; if the question was “whose arms?,” again, one looked to the militia. Heller loosened the fit between the militia and the right, causing a welter of conflict as to what institutions now facilitate and constrain the Second Amendment. This Article attempts to restructure the inquiry into Second Amendment rights by drawing from the literature on institutionalism and constitutional law. Although the institutional turn in constitutional law has been important to free speech scholarship, religion clause scholarship, and separation of powers scholarship, no one has consciously applied institutionalism to the Second Amendment. This Article fills that gap. In so doing, it situates institutionalism within the leading methodological approaches of today: textualism, originalism, common law constitutionalism, popular constitutionalism, and pragmatism. As such, this Article aims to reach beyond Second Amendment scholars and speak more generally to debates about constitutional law and constitutional theory

The Uncontroversial Controversy in Compelled Commercial Disclosures

Federal and state administrative agencies increasingly advance public health goals through the use of mandatory disclosures, like warning labels on cigarettes, that are intended to both inform and influence consumer decisions. However, the standard for determining whether these requirements violate a commercial speaker’s First Amendment rights is unsettled. In Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, the U.S. Supreme Court adopted a test that defers to the government’s determination that the compelled disclosure of “factual and uncontroversial information” is justified. Since Zauderer was decided, lower courts have disagreed about the meaning of “uncontroversial.” A recent Supreme Court case, National Institute of Family & Life Advocates v. Becerra (NIFLA), may have resolved the debate by treating “uncontroversial” as a requirement that a disclosure not relate to a controversial subject matter. In doing so, the Court diverged from two interpretations commonly adopted by lower courts: that “uncontroversial” refers to the factual accuracy of the disclosed information or to the underlying ideology. This Note illustrates the public health implications of these various interpretations in the context of an ongoing international debate over the benefits of breastfeeding and mandatory disclosures with respect to infant formula. It argues that the Court’s position in NIFLA poses a significant obstacle to government efforts to protect public health and ignores Zauderer’s firm grounding in listeners’ informational interests. Factual accuracy more appropriately limits Zauderer’s scope. Heightened scrutiny should only apply if the government compels a commercial speaker to convey opinion. While concerns about the overuse of warnings for remote or unsubstantiated risks are well-founded, this issue may be addressed by evaluating whether a particular disclosure fails Zauderer review as “unjustified or unduly burdensome.” This framework for compelled disclosures is more strongly supported by the text of Zauderer itself, and it would grant proper deference to a legislature’s policy determination that potential health risks justify a disclosure

Internet Filters: A Public Policy Report (Second edition; fully revised and updated)

No sooner was the Internet upon us than anxiety arose over the ease of accessing pornography and other controversial content. In response, entrepreneurs soon developed filtering products. By the end of the decade, a new industry had emerged to create and market Internet filters....Yet filters were highly imprecise from the beginning. The sheer size of the Internet meant that identifying potentially offensive content had to be done mechanically, by matching "key" words and phrases; hence, the blocking of Web sites for "Middlesex County," or words such as "magna cum laude". Internet filters are crude and error-prone because they categorize expression without regard to its context, meaning, and value. Yet these sweeping censorship tools are now widely used in companies, homes, schools, and libraries. Internet filters remain a pressing public policy issue to all those concerned about free expression, education, culture, and democracy. This fully revised and updated report surveys tests and studies of Internet filtering products from the mid-1990s through 2006. It provides an essential resource for the ongoing debate

Simple identification tools in FishBase

Simple identification tools for fish species were included in the FishBase information system from its inception. Early tools made use of the relational model and characters like fin ray meristics. Soon pictures and drawings were added as a further help, similar to a field guide. Later came the computerization of existing dichotomous keys, again in combination with pictures and other information, and the ability to restrict possible species by country, area, or taxonomic group. Today, www.FishBase.org offers four different ways to identify species. This paper describes these tools with their advantages and disadvantages, and suggests various options for further development. It explores the possibility of a holistic and integrated computeraided strategy